Deterrence, Coercion, and Appeasement presents a compelling and original survey of British grand strategy in the inter-war period. Whereas most existing accounts privilege either diplomacy and foreign affairs, intelligence, or military affairs more narrowly, this study underlines the
inexorable relationships between foreign policy, grand strategy, military force, intelligence, finance and not least, domestic politics and public opinion. Britain was the world's only global power in the inter-war period, and it confronted problems on a global scale. Policy-makers sought two
goals: peace with security. They did so successfully in the 1920s, partly due to favourable circumstances that made their task relatively easy, and partly because they understood the strengths and limitations of British power and knew how to wield them. The situation deteriorated rapidly in the
1930s, however, as the international system became increasingly unfavourable to Britain. Policy-makers proved less adept than their predecessors at meeting these new challenges, partly because those challenges were more formidable, but also because they lacked the self-confidence of their
predecessors, who had held high office during the most difficult years of the First World War and who lacked their understanding of how to wield the lever of international power. The study ends by providing a new and more sophisticated account of how and why Neville Chamberlain appeased the fascist
powers in the late 1930s, and why Winston Churchill opposed him and eventually supplanted him in May 1940.
Author(s): David French
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 656
City: Oxford
Cover
Deterrence, Coercion, and Appeasement: British Grand Strategy, 1919–1940
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
1: Introduction
Peace with Security
An Age of Appeasement?
Part I: Making Peace and Managing Peace, 1919-30
2: Who Made British Policy and Grand Strategy
Ministers and Cabinets
The Departments
The Committee of Imperial Defence
Intelligence
The World as Seen from Whitehall
The Political Landscape and Thinking about War and Peace
The August 1919 Assumptions: The Ten-Year Rule
The Churchill Committee
Preparing for the Next War
Conclusion
3: Creating the New World Order, 1919–21
Introduction
Grand Strategy 1914–18 and the Armistice
The Paris Peace Conference and the European Settlement
The League of Nations
Britain and the Bolsheviks
The Peace Settlement in the Middle East
Internal Challenges: India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ireland
The Dominions
Conclusion
4: Reconstructing the New World Order, 1921–6
Introduction
The Western Pacific: Japan, the USA, and the Washington Conference
Rapallo, the Chanak Crisis, and the Fall of Lloyd George
The Anglo-French Estrangement
The Treaty of Lausanne: Unpicking the Revisionist Alliance
Composing the Franco-German Quarrel: The Dawes Plan and Locarno
Conclusion
5: Managing the New World Order, 1926–30
Austen Chamberlain’s Diplomacy
Containing Communism
Projecting Power across the Globe: The China Crisis and the Shanghai Defence Force
The Singapore Deterrent
Security through Disarmament: The Coolidge Conference, and the London Naval Treaty
The Military Foundations of British Power
Conclusion
Part II: The Crumbling of the New World Order, 1936-6
6: The World Crisis and the National Government, 1931–3
Introduction
The Great Depression
The National Government
The Revisionist Powers: Japan and Manchuria
The World Disarmament Conference
Conclusion
7: A New Grand Strategy: The Defence Requirements Committee, 1932–5
Introduction
The Demise of the Ten-Year Rule
The Grand Strategy of the Defence Requirements Committee
Neville Chamberlain’s Grand Strategy
Hankey’s Imperial Tour
The Leith-Ross Mission and the Second London Naval Conference
Containing Hitler: The Stresa Front
Conclusion
8: ‘I wish I saw a real policy emerging, but frankly I don’t’: The Baldwin Government, 1935–7
Introduction
The Baldwin Government, Defence, and the Public
The Collapse of the West European Balance of Power
Abyssinian Crisis and the 1935 General Election
The Mediterranean Crises
The Rhineland Crisis and the Search for a Western Pact
Rearmament
Manufacturers, Trade Unionists, and the Rearmament Programme
Conclusion
Part III: The Ascendency of Chamberlain, 1937-40
9: The Grand Strategy of Fortress Britain, May 1937–September 1938
Introduction
The Inskip Review and the Creation of Fortress Britain
Mending Fences with the Dictators
Eden, an Armed Truce and Containment
The Anschluss
The Czechoslovak Crisis
The Political and Military Balance in the Summer of 1938
Chamberlain’s Z Plan and the Munich Conference
Conclusion
10: ‘And I sincerely believe that we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos’: Appeasement, Containment, and War, October 1938 to September 1939
Introduction
Responses to Munich
Kristallnacht and the Pursuit of Mussolini
A Continental Commitment
Deterrence and Containment
The Abortive Soviet Alliance
Appeasement through the Backchannels
Strategy, Politics, and the Decision for War
Conclusion
11: ‘. . . there was no hurry as time was on our side’ Chamberlain’s War
Introduction
A Long but Limited War
Mobilizing the Home Front
The Scandinavian Short-Cut
Norway and the Fall of the Chamberlain Government
The Churchill Government
Conclusion
12: Conclusion
Bibliography
Unpublished Primary Sources
Birmingham University Library
British Library
Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge
Library and Archives Canada
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College London
National Archives of Australia
National Archives, Public Record Office, Kew, London
F. D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Memoirs and Published Primary Sources
Newspapers and Journals
Published Secondary Sources
Index
